Star Children: Wheels

Astrological Stories by Juri Viktor Stork

Sometimes
I sit in front of our old house, imagining how people
might have lived here in the old days. How they grew
their vegetables, cut wood in the forest or followed some sort
of craft or trade.
No light switches, no hoovers, no showers, no aircraft noise,
no telephone calls from some marketing enterprise during meal
times. And no cars. No droning engine noise, no hooting, no
rat-run
traffic, no maniac who races up our street at 100 mph at eleven
o'clock at night, no ladies in four-wheel drives with
bull bars at face level, no suicidal actions under a lowering
swing barrier. No such dangers for playing children. Car
drivers behave autistically, completely unaware of what is going on
around them (yes, I drive a car myself).

Moses, the son of our neighbours Vivian and Rolf, is a great
car lover. He's hardly four, but already has an impressive
collection of 76 toy cars, three Buicks, 16 trucks, one Matchbox
race course with a loop-the-loop, a figure-of-eight race course
with two remote-controlled Formula-one rocket and a radio-controlled
VW Beetle with a droning engine and a signal-horn. Vivian
assured me that
his first word wasn't "Mama" but "car".
If I believed in re-incarnation, I'd be certain that Moses
would have been a car dealer or racing driver in his previous life.
But as an astrologer I suspect he is one of the rare cases
of a "Mercedes"
Ascendant.

Our
son Leo is completely different. He also has a few toy cars,
but they are confined to a miserable existence in some
bedroom drawer. Driving is boring. His toy tractor was used
mainly as a stationary power shovel in the sandbox. For a long
time, he wouldn't ride his bike - he found two
wheels too unstable. He wasn't bothered that his same-age
or even younger friends had been riding their bikes for ages.
He had no such ambition whatsoever. With his Sun-Saturn opposition,
he is careful at expanding his territory.

Rafaela, one and a half years younger than Leo, and whenever
possible faster than her brother, didn't trust the two wheels
either. Tricycle, scooter, inline skates, skis - no problem.
But riding a bike was a challenge she avoided.
Although we practised a lot last autumn, the two of them
put their bikes back into the garage. I admit that I would
have liked them to succeed. Their failures are also mine. And
even though I know that development can't be forced, I found
it hard to leave it at that.

Astrologically,
personal development as well as technological progress belong
to the domains of Uranus, Aquarius and the eleventh
house. In my horoscope, I have Saturn in Aquarius on the midheaven.
Saturn is the brake, the structuring force, "hard reality".
I'm always worried that things don't go the way they should,
I try to have all developments under control. A real astrologer
...

Ah, you think my children and I may have some themes
in common? Well, let's see: Leo's Sun is in the eleventh house
("doing things one's own way", "following one's
own path")
... Rafaela's Mars is in the eleventh ("living one's
own strength")
and her Jupiter and Uranus in Aquarius ("sudden developments")
... Yes, that somehow rings a bell. I remember my red
scooter, and the really bad fall on the gravel road when the
frame couldn't take the weight of a ten-year-old boy at full
speed anymore... Actually, when did I learn to ride a bike?

Rafaela
told us at the breakfast table on Easter Monday that she'd
had a dream: "I got on my bike and rode away, just
like that!" "Why don't you try it", I encouraged
her. She went and got her bright yellow bicycle, got on - and
rode away.
Just like that. Of course, this put Leo under enormous pressure.
He also got his bike - and to his own surprise and delight,
it worked. At first still a bit clumsy and shaky, both of them
soon rode as if they had been born on a bike.

By the way, the astrological interpretation of the automobile
is another story: the engine with its controlled force of the
fire is definitely uranian. Getting from here to there expresses
the mercurial principle, while the traffic rules and regulations
are
linked to
Saturn. I suppose, putting down the accelerator when overtaking
and hooting at an annoying cyclist is pretty Martian, the choice
of design and make of the car Venusian. The petrol consumption
reminds
me of the excessive side of Jupiter, the regular traffic breakdowns
of Neptune. And the destructive consequences of car traffic
for our planet are quite Plutonian.

But
when I'm in my car by myself, enjoying the landscape and listening
to music, the car appears to me like the epitome of
lunar energy: as if I was travelling in a womb, I feel strong,
safe and comfortable. Actually, this might be the key to the
fascination
cars have
on people, and to the uniquely autistic attitude which seizes
all drivers once they're in their car: "Mama" is
not far away at all. Is she, Moses?

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